This book contains a clear exposition of two contemporary topics in modern differential geometry: distance geometric analysis on manifolds, in particular, comparison theory for distance functions in spaces which have well defined bounds on their curvature the application of the Lichnerowicz formula for Dirac operators to the study of Gromov's invariants to measure the K-theoretic size of a Riemannian manifold. It is intended for both graduate students and researchers.

This text focuses on developing an intimate acquaintance with the geometric meaning of curvature and thereby introduces and demonstrates all the main technical tools needed for a more advanced course on Riemannian manifolds. It covers proving the four most fundamental theorems relating curvature and topology: the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, the Cartan-Hadamard Theorem, Bonnet’s Theorem, and a special case of the Cartan-Ambrose-Hicks Theorem.

This text focuses on developing an intimate acquaintance with the geometric meaning of curvature and thereby introduces and demonstrates all the main technical tools needed for a more advanced course on Riemannian manifolds. It covers proving the four most fundamental theorems relating curvature and topology: the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, the Cartan-Hadamard Theorem, Bonnet’s Theorem, and a special case of the Cartan-Ambrose-Hicks Theorem.

Foreword by S S Chern In 1926-27, Cartan gave a series of lectures in which he introduced exterior forms at the very beginning and used extensively orthogonal frames throughout to investigate the geometry of Riemannian manifolds. In this course he solved a series of problems in Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces, as well as a series of variational problems on geodesics. In 1960, Sergei P Finikov translated from French into Russian his notes of these Cartan's lectures and published them as a book entitled Riemannian Geometry in an Orthogonal Frame. This book has many innovations, such as the notion of intrinsic normal differentiation and the Gaussian torsion of a submanifold in a Euclidean multidimensional space or in a space of constant curvature, an affine connection defined in a normal fiber bundle of a submanifold, etc. It has now been translated into English by Vladislav V Goldberg, currently Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, who also edited the Russian edition.

This systematic and self-contained treatment examines the topology of differentiable manifolds, curvature and homology of Riemannian manifolds, compact Lie groups, complex manifolds, and curvature and homology of Kaehler manifolds. It generalizes the theory of Riemann surfaces to that of Riemannian manifolds. Includes four helpful appendixes. "A valuable survey." — Nature. 1962 edition.